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analysis w/e 14.5.11 |
DVDs out 9.5.11 |
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@ DVDfever Youtube |
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May 11 2011 
DVDfever co uk
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Producers:
Screenplay:
Music:
Cast :
Frank Perry (Brian Cox) particuarly wants out because he's in for life and wants to get out to see his daughter (Eleanor McLynn) whose health has taken a turn for the worse because she's now a junkie. The rest of the clan, with Cox (right, in centre), include Lenny Drake (Shakespeare in Love's Joseph Fiennes), Viv Batista (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou's Seu Jorge), Brodie (Liam Cunningham) and Lacey (Mamma Mia's Dominic Cooper). At several points throughout the movie, it fast-forwards to their later breakout attempt - rather than doing things in chronological order - so that keeps things moving rather than just filming life inside the same four walls for much of its running time, and there's various elements to the escape, making it a lot like an episode of Prison Break, but from season 1 when it still made a bit of sense and not the recent season 4 episodes that lost the plot completely. Damian Lewis, as Rizza, and Steven Mackintosh, as Tony, are great but the film is relatively short to make full use of their talents and while we know that Rizza is the top dog and Tony is the annoying one, the film has to spend more time on the main characters' escape plan and then show them carrying it out so these two sadly get a bit sidelined, even though they do have some key moments. One bit that fell short early on, for example, was when we see that the presence of Rizza leads to one prisoner, who clearly has some form of mental disorder, forced to harm himself and I couldn't actually understand why. Overall, The Escapist is a great piece of entertainment and a marvellous directorial debut for Rupert Wyatt, such to the point that I didn't realise it was his first as so many scenes show great accomplishment. It's also boosted greatly with fantastic incidental music from composer Benjamin Wallfisch. All the cast play a brilliant part, but the standouts are Lewis, even though he deserves more airtime, Cox and Cooper.
The fact there are both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 options is excellent... but why are there no subtitles? I prefer them to be available as an option and some strong Irish accents don't make for easy deciphering, while other softly-spoken words just get totally lost. The audio does get a work out for the thumping instrumental music as well as the roar of the crowd in certain scenes and some spectacularly violent moments. I have to point out, alas, that the last chapter is slightly out-of-sync. The extras are as follows:
As mentioned above there are no subtitles for the DVD and, also the chapters are a very lacking at only 12 for the 97-minute running time. Personally, I'd bank on at least one every five minutes plus one each for the opening and closing credits. The menu features various clips from the film with the aforementioned instrumental music from the film. Annoyingly, this is one of those DVDs which features pre-menu trailers, but why aren't these in the extras menu?
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2009.blog comments powered by Disqus
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B 37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier. PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
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The Escapist
is a low-budget prison movie which brings together several characters who'd normally never associate with one another outside
of that environment but through the alliances they've formed they do find common ground - and what any prisoner wants is to
escape.
